Burial at Sea Part 2's Broken Game Design
I enjoyed most of my time with Burial at Sea, and it certainly was worth my time so I could wrap up and finish Bioshock's epic story... but... Irrational isn't known for it's fantastic gameplay design, just look at Bioshock 1, but where Infinite was great fun and Burial at Sea - Part 1 was further improvement, we get this horrible piece of trash that's only redeeming value is the writing and visuals. While there are a massive amounts of things to nit-pick at it's design I'm going to concentrate on not only the biggest but baffling flaws. Baffling as in I don't understand how anyone on the design team let it slide. 1. Weak Basic Stealth From several of the people who worked on the original thief we get an incredibly bare bones stealth experience. The atmospheric locale of Rapture is helped tremendously by the lighting, so why not use the lighting to it's full effect? Where is the enthesis on staying in the shadows, stalking and/or hiding from your prey? It can't have been that hard to program in and design the levels around. Enemies are also garbage at finding you after you've been spotted. 2. Old Man Winter vs. Posession What... the... *bleep*... Okay, let's take the fully upgraded version of both of these, because quite frankly you should have them the upgrades are incredibly easy to find. So... *Old Man Winter **Costs more **Temporarily freezes an enemy making them easier to kill *Posession **Costs LESS **Makes the enemy fight other enemies for a while **Knocks out the enemy as soon as it's done, just as effective as killing Old Man Winter is USELESS, and all it would have taken to avoid that would have been to make it cost less to use! 3. Peeping Tom Here it is, the big one, the one that broke the game. The new plasmid allows you to go invisible and see enemies through walls, two easy to find upgrades are quickly given to you that make it not take eve if you stand still. Returning back to how the enemies are brain dead, two, TWO enemies in the whole game will still attack you after you've dissapeared. No matter what situation you are in, no matter how much trouble, using this and standing still, which doesn't cost ANY Eve gets you safe and sound. Enemies will not even try to guess your position, they will instantly forget where you were! The game becomes nothing more then staying frozen, waiting for an enemy to come near, bop him over the head, and go invisible before his twenty friends attack you. Rinse, repeat, the game has been won for you with this Plasmid. How anyone on the design team thought this a good idea is beyond me. Either A. It should never have been allowed to be a non-eve consuming plasmid or B. The AI should have been programmed to not instantly give up the moment you use it. It's IMPOSSIBLE to lose! I've complained in the past about how broken a game Bioshock 1 was, but good GOD this is pathetic. The worst part is every major problem could have easily been fixed. Irrational needs to remember they're developing a game.